"Darn him!" he said to himself, as he recalled the many times when Tom Tracy, a boy about his own age, had laughed at him for his poverty and coarse clothes. "He ain't any better than I am, if he does wear velvet trousers and live in a big house. 'Tain't his'n; it's Mr. Arthur's, and I'm glad he is coming home. I wonder if he will bring grandma anything. I wish he'd bring me a pyramid. He's seen 'em, they say."
Meantime, Mr. Frank Tracy had resumed his seat, and, with his hands clasped over his head, was wondering what effect his brother's return would have upon him. Would he be obliged to leave the park, and the luxury he had enjoyed so long, and go back to the old life which he hated so much?
"No; Arthur will never be so mean," he said. "He has always shown himself generous, and will continue to do so. Besides that, he will want somebody to keep the house for him, unless----" And here the perspiration started from every pore as Frank Tracy thought: "What if he is married, and the _us_ in his telegram means a wife, instead of a friend or servant as I imagined!"
That would indeed be a calamity, for then his reign was over at Tracy Park, and the party he and his wife were to give that night to at least three hundred people would be their last.
"Confound the party!" he thought, as he arose from his chair and began to pace the room. "Arthur won't like that as a greeting after eleven years' absence. He never fancied being cheek by jowl with Tom, Dick, and Harry; and that is just what the smash is to night. Dolly wants to please everybody, thinking to get me votes for Congress, and so she has invited all creation and his wife. There's old Peterkin, the roughest kind of a canal bummer when Arthur went away. Think of my fastidious brother shaking hands with him and Widow Shipley, who kept a low tavern on the tow path! She'll be there, in her silks and long gold chain, for she has four boys, all voters, who call me _Frank_ and slap me on the shoulder. Ugh! even I hate it all;" and, in a most perturbed state of mind, the would be Congressman continued to walk the room, lamenting the party, and wondering what his aristocratic brother would say to such a crowd in his house on the night of his return.